Brown outlines his vision for an 'X Factor' Britain

Gordon Brown will make his most audacious bid to show himself as the unbeatable 'Prime Minister in waiting' this week with a remarkable series of meetings with foreign leaders and the launch of a groundbreaking aid initiative backed by the Pope.

In what one aide described as an effort to 'show what a Brown premiership will look like', the Chancellor told The Observer yesterday of his vision for an ' X-Factor' Britain. He said the reality TV music programme, as well as shows like Dragons' Den and The Apprentice, promoted 'aspiration, how anyone can achieve things' - key to the agenda he hoped to bring to Number 10.

On Tuesday, Brown will be flanked by a Vatican envoy representing Pope Benedict XVI and by leaders of all Britain's religious communities when he inaugurates a bond scheme to fund the mass inoculation of children in the poorest countries. He will also hold talks in London this week with King Abdullah of Jordan, the Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

On Thursday, Brown will launch an educational scheme called 'Great Britons Learning', designed to ensure that children are taught about leading figures in UK history.

The move to assume an increasingly wide-ranging role comes on the heels of efforts by Brown and his allies to repair the damage from the near civil war that erupted within the Labour party after a failed attempt by a rebel group of MPs to force Tony Blair out of Downing Street.

While Blairite ministers said yesterday that the atmosphere in the party was 'much, much better', however, Brown's unabashedly 'prime-ministerial' profile could risk reopening wounds. One member of the Blair inner circle said: 'Gordon is still on probation, and it's not certain there won't yet be a serious challenger. It depends on the lay of the land when Tony goes.' A close friend of the Home Secretary, John Reid, also said that he was still taking a 'wait-and-see' attitude on whether to stand.

Brown was by turns relaxed and impassioned in describing to The Observer the kind of Britain, and world, which he hoped he would help to shape. He made it clear that the underlying theme would be to encourage and empower 'aspiration'.

He said that it was time to move the political debate on from Labour's 1997 focus on 'interest rates, the economy, and public service details' and to recapture the kinds of themes that inspired political idealism and activism in the 1960s.

'The landscape has changed since 1997. Cultural issues are all-important, but I mean the culture of the nation in the broadest sense, issues such as what's happening to childhood and health - above all, our young people,' he said.

'It's a new agenda,' Brown said, adding that this 'would mean tackling issues ranging from smoking to sport. I have recently been to Australia and really admired what they do about sport, how much value they place on it in terms of fitness and health.' But he said a key priority would be to provide people with the skills needed to realise their ambitions and to get ahead in life.

'That is why I like TV programmes like X Factor, Dragons' Den and The Apprentice. They show the value of aspiration, how anyone can achieve things.' It is that sense of empowering people to succeed, he said, that would be at the core of his political message.

At the central London launch of the new bond scheme, he will take the first concrete step to implement the so-called International Finance Facility he suggested in 2001. The 'immunisation' bonds have been guaranteed by a total of more than £2.1bn in binding commitments from seven governments. The initial sale of the bonds, which closes on Tuesday, is expected to raise an immediate £500m for use in an immunisation programme that aims to inoculate more than 500 million children in 70 countries over the next decade.

'I've been talking around the world for the last five years about what can be achieved by front-loading aid [through bond sales] and I've been talking to Bill Gates about how we could take the first step on immunisation,' Brown said. But he added that success would 'not have been possible without the millions of people who campaigned with Make Poverty History, and without the inspirational work of the NGOs and faith groups who led that campaign.'

He added: 'This event is for me our way of saying: "We are delivering the promises we made to you, your aspirations are becoming a reality."'

Brown said the most important thing was not the pounds and pence raised but the hope of saving lives and allowing children to fulfil their aspirations.